Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Racking the Red

I racked the Cranberry wine this weekend. It tastes pretty dam good already. Hope I can keep from drinking it til next Thanksgiving. This, my second time racking, went much better than the first. I picked up a short racking cane at the brew-shop. The bend in the rod stands only about 2 inches out of the top of the jug - still I couldn't get enough head pressure to keep a siphon on it. This time I didn't mess around trying. I just used the hose and siphoned down to about an inch of the lees and then slowly poured off the rest.

It worked out good. I barely lost any wine - but got most all the sludge off the bottom. I have a picture somewhere of the lees. I'll find it. Here:)

They were a purplish-puce color. Kind of ugly. The wine remains a beautiful cranberry color. It looks like it should have bubbles, but I'm not sure that I'm up for adding CO2 yet. At some point I'll try fizzing some drink.